Mark E. Neely, Jr., John Francis Bannon Professor of American Studies and History at Saint Louis University, received his PhD from Yale University and directed the Lincoln Museum at Fort Wayne, Indiana, from 1973 to 1992.

His many books have focused on the popular art of the Civil War era and on Abraham Lincoln; they include The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia (1982), The Lincoln Image: Abraham Lincoln and the Popular Print (1984), The Confederate Image: Prints of the Lost Cause (1987), and The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties (1991), which received the Pulitzer Prize in history. His Klement Lecture is based on his book on civil liberties in the Confederacy, to be published by the University Press of Virginia.